Where there’s a will..

Date Added | August 21, 2019

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As part of 2020’s commitment to help and support accountancy firms, we continue to facilitate over 50 Regional Members meetings each year. They are very popular, as the meetings allow delegates it’s good to talk – share and learn!

What are most of us, most concerned about, most of the time ?

Feedback from these meetings undoubtedly points the finger in 4 directions:

Not enough people, resources or efficiencies to satisfy the ever-higher demands from clients

Trying to be “all things to all people” is just not possible anymore and is causing us concern

What should our “IT stack” look like?

Moving up the “value chain”

Its fair to say that all these items are inextricably linked but we are seeing more and more firms rightly conclude that there has never been a more important time than now to set your strategy and align your team to the common cause.

Here’s a case study that one 2020 member firm found to be successful, eventually – I stress “eventually” as these things can take time to take effect;

First of all, they agreed they were fed up doing “the same old, same old”, with the “same old outcome” which, was highly stressful, not very profitable and generally unrewarding. – It was decided to stop fighting the “price war” with compliance work and the resulting challenges of workflow, efficiencies, IT and keeping people excited with boring work – instead they would focus to move up the value chain and make life more exciting, more challenging and more rewarding for almost everyone – here’s how.

PITA clients – package up and sell a portfolio of clients that are holding your firm’s strategy back.

2020 now has access to fellow 2020 members whose strategy is ONLY to act for smaller, compliance only, clients – they will buy these portfolios from you

Marketing efforts step up to attract the right type of client – in this case;

the type of client they wanted are;

Owner Managed Businesses,

Turnover >£2m, or Net Assets on Balance sheet >£500k, or profitability >£350k (not always possible so each set of accounts needs to be reviewed manually)

Over 50 years old:

Married

Niches – Care Homes, Childcare, & Chemists

How to get a list of these targets

Local knowledge

Local regional societies/chambers of industries/niches

Networking (social with solicitors, clients and banks)

Companies House software

Search engines and Websites

LinkedIn, Facebook and Google-maps

The services offered focus on

Selling the business (and preparing for sale)

Profit improvement and Business Advisory (including tax planning)

Wealth Management (Financial security in retirement)

Communications to these targets is restricted only to the services listed above